Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday May 17, 2012 @08:09PM
from the watching-the-watchers dept.

Fluffeh writes "In recent times, it seems many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war with police officers, destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it. But in a surprising twist, the U.S. Justice Department has sent letter (PDF) to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department — who have been quite heavy handed in enforcing their 'Don't record me bro!' mantra. The letter contains an awful lot of lawyer babble and lists many court cases and the like, although some sections are surprisingly clear: 'Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances. In addition to violating the First Amendment, police officers violate the core requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process clause when they irrevocably deprived individuals of their recordings without first providing notice and an opportunity to object.' There is a lot more and it certainly seems like a firm foothold in the right direction."

About goddamn time we get a voice of reason and someone "higher up" on our side. Not that it'll make a damn bit of difference. "Protect and Serve" is a joke. Cops don't care and won't care. I imagine the mantra from cops now will be "What photos? I never saw any."

I came across this about a week ago: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2012/05/11/more-than-half-of-police-officers-voted-for-neo-nazi-party/ [greekreporter.com]It says that half of the Greek police force voted for the neo-nazis. I realize that this is only one datapoint and it's in Greece specifically, but I think it's an international phenomenon that I have long suspected: the people who are attracted to the policing profession tend to have somewhat fascistoid tendencies. I'm sure there are some great cops out there who became a cop because they wanted to help people, but there also seems to a ton of bad apples within the police force, regardless of country. Of course police violence can't entirely be blamed on the officers, the politicians and the higher-ups set the policies that enable such bad behavior. I think Norway and the UK have the right idea - don't allow officers to carry around guns in their everyday work, I think this simple measure could deter some of the people attracted to the profession for its monopoly on legal violence.

I don't think law enforcement-in general-is prone to fascism. Fascism is a political/social ideology of extreme patriotism, such that nothing the nation does can be wrong.

I would say that law enforcement is prone to totalitarianism, wherein the populace is strictly controlled in every single aspect of their lives.

This may or may not be a predisposed condition of law enforcement, as in "they were always like that"? Rather, I suspect it is a product of the environment that most law enforcement exists.

Law enforcement is not a 90-10 job, where 90% of the time you're bored out of your skull, and 10% crapping your pants in fear. It's more of a 60--20-40 job, where 60% of the time you're not in danger, but busy as Hell, 20% in actual danger, and 40% trying to catch up on paperwork. Yes, that's 120%, which means most law enforcement is running on a 20% deficit of time. Your finest days are when you can actually go home, on time, with no paperwork hanging over your head.

This cultivates a very dangerous mentality of "Leave me the fuck alone, OR ELSE!". And because all of the other officers are in the same boat, this can foment a culture of totalitarianism, not out of a desire for convenience, but out of the struggle to merely keep one's head above water.

That politicians and the public do not want to provide sufficient warm bodies to reduce the workload on the overall force, only makes the situation worse. You get a feedback loop that only gets worse and worse, until you have officers who have gone beyond thinking "Hitler may have had a good idea," to "This is how I am going to do it!"

Is this acceptable? No.Is this excusable? No.

But it is an explanation of a problem, and that means it can be fixed.

City police are only one of many police forces in the US. There are plenty of others out there, many that offer better jobs in terms of less danger and more pay. For example if you've ever been around non-military federal government buildings, you'll find they are guarded by police, not some mysterious quasi-military force or something. That's right, the security guards at the CIA for example are police, uniformed ones in fact.

Well needless to say, those people have to be good. Not only do they need to be vigilant in their job, but they'd better be good at being respectful to people at well. The CIA is not going to be amused at all if one of their security cops assaults their analysts or case officers or something. However for that there are compensations. Nobody is very likely to actually try anything there, your on the job danger is very low, same as pretty much any other office worker. You get to deal with people who are generally nice to you all the time, not people who are hostile, crazy, on drugs, etc.

So that also is part of it. The best police are able to get better jobs with better agencies. Those agencies can afford to be more selective about who they hire. That leaves less talent for regular city police.

I'm a police officer in England, and from my experience the fault is not with the officers. I'm not saying everyone is a saint - there are certainly some bad officers out there - but the problem in terms of revealing such behaviour mainly lies with the higher-ups. I'm biased, of course, but hear me out.

When there are incidents involving officers violating the rights of suspects, the higher-ups don't want to hear about it. It looks bad on their report, and it makes the force look bad if/when it gets in the media. In fact, the organisation of the whole system makes it exceedingly difficult to be a whistle-blower. Reporting such things will make you very unpopular - it's tantamount to throwing your career prospects away. You can't talk to the press either, because it would jeopardise any legal proceedings that might occur in future. The whole "anonymous reporting" thing is a joke, too, because if it ever comes to trail you've got to take the stand as a witness anyway. I'm not saying it's right to ignore this stuff, but it's understandable.

Now before you think it's all doom and gloom, there are a massive proportion of good officers out there. They avoid this stuff by never getting involved in the first place. Most officers don't beat up suspects, or attack innocent protesters. I'm all for increased CCTV on police because I've got nothing to hide. In fact, it'll provide the CPS with more evidence if a case goes to trial, and quickly dispel any claims of evidence planting or police brutality. Furthermore, it helps identify officers who are bent, because they're the ones who don't want you to film them. It's a win-win situation.

So next time you see an officer arresting someone, film it and put it on YouTube. If they're one of the good guys, they'll thank you for it.

Despite all that, despite the fact you'd be hurting your career and that your superiors don't want to hear it and all the rest, if you aren't willing to stand up for what is right, why be a police officer at all? What about the value of being able to look yourself in the mirror without shame?

I'm a victim of police brutality here in the US and I thought back to all the portrayals of police officers that I saw in films and television. Whatever faults the characters might have, most of them had a strong sense of right and wrong. It's too bad that so few police officers seem to have that in real life.

In my own experience the US has some of the worst police officers. They seem to hate pretty much anyone who is not a cop. They are often angry and have short tempers and get some kind of enjoyment out of hurting people. In other countries I've lived in the police seemed more just like regular guys. They didn't have that 'edge' to them that makes American cops seem so much like grown up bullies.

I'm not sure how plea bargaining works in the UK, but I was advised by my attorney to lie to the judge under oath because the deal he made with the prosecutor required that I admit to all the charges against me. I had only minutes to decide and so I decided to make a false confession, but it was one of the hardest things I have ever done, and I will always think at least somewhat less of myself for doing it. I felt terribly guilty about it because doing so violated my own sense of right and wrong. In order to stay out of prison for things I did not do I was persuaded to commit the real crime of perjury and admit to a violent crime that I did not commit.

It's amazing to me the kinds of things that American cops do to hurt people on a regular basis and yet they don't seem to feel any guilt about it. I think they must dehumanize [wikipedia.org] us. Anyone who is not a cop they see as lesser beings. And maybe some cops just can't live with all of the horrible things they have done to people and that's why the police suicide rate is so high in the US. Not because of the things they've seen, but because of the things they've done. I think a lot of cops are true sociopaths who just do not feel guilt, but if you do feel guilt I would imagine that doing what you feel is right is far more important than getting a promotion by doing things you know are wrong. Despite what some people think, for anyone who is not a sociopath immune to feelings of guilt, integrity and honesty and always doing what you think is right have their own rewards.

This is why you rarely have the police give you a "good talking to", or quietly bringing little johnny home, and rather make every effort to ticket, arrest, and get people in front of judges.
Oh, no, not even in front of judges. In front of prosecutors with plea bargains. They don't even want judges involved.

There's a bar in town I go to watch karaoke once a week. Thanks to the stupid maze of streets, there's really only two ways out of there, studded with stop signs. There's a cop watching one or both of

Simply put: With our police, we have created a class of "Super Citizens" who get to do things that the general population can't. It is extremely important that they follow the rules and we are able to observe their actions. The penalties for breaking the rules MUST be higher for those in charge of enforcing the rules. Anything less is a gradual invitation for creating a police state.
Transparency and oversight. We always need them. Each of the three branches of government watch each other and All three should answer to us. I am profoundly worried by the fading away of the free press and its replacement by partisan reporting designed to comfort what ever political leaning you have. It is good for all sides to exchange views. It is good to challenge your assumptions. There also is great need for fact checking in the media. The need to draw attention to half truths and out and out lies.
The real war has been a war on debate. End Rant.

Problem with that is there was no way to do it without breaking the law. Its not against the law to say generically "I want a complaint form", but it is illegal to begin the process of filling out a police report as it is legally considered a form of perjury (this of course only applies to activists and reporters). The best way to handle a complaint against an officer unfortunately, is to get a lawyer, write up a complaint in legalese, and send it notarized by way of certified mail making sure to retain a

I dunno, I didn't see anything too terribly odd in that video with the exception of the reporter being a complete asshole.

If he had actually explained himself at any point or followed instructions at any point he'd have had better luck.

Instead of just ignoring what the officer is asking, how about saying "I'd prefer not to tell you my name". For gods sake the officers in some of the video even ask "do you want to identify yourself" to which he ignores them or pretends they're about to beat him.

News flash: acting like a total fuckwad in a police station will get you arrested.

Seriously, there are lots of videos of cops doing the wrong thing, but I fail to see anything in this video that I have an actual problem with.

They're not supposed to have to give any of that information at all. Any citizen in this country should be able to walk into any police station in this country and get a complaint form upon request. All the bullshit "questions" being asked as a barrier to entry is nothing more than the cop trying to get some information so they can cover both their own asses and the asses of anyone potentially involved in the report.

Why do you think they want their name so bad? Just so they have it? Get fucking real. This is the police department we're talking about, not Pizza Hut. They want the person's name so they can go pull their file, see the names of any officers they may have had contact with, and start playing their coverup games. The first thing they would do is contact every officer in that file and tell them "PSSSSS Just so you know John Doe is in here asking for a complaint form" and then all of a sudden documents, reports, evidence goes "missing" and VOILA! No more complaint, it's just someone trying to "get free money from the police department". That's precisely what the one guy even says: "I need to make sure it's legitimate." Who the fuck put him in charge of investigating a report? Does Internal Affairs watch the fucking front desk now at a police station? Please...

No matter how angry they get at you, no matter how much the bluster and bitch, no matter how much they try to beg, plead, and cajole you, the fact remains that you do not have to tell them a fucking thing, not even your name. Asking for a complaint form is within the legal rights of every citizen in this country, no questions asked.

Regardless of how it will "end", we have a right to refuse to speak. That is guaranteed by decades of case law. Just because they don't like it or it makes their job harder, that still does not give them the right to react the way they did to it.

You have the right to stare at them blankly and keep your mouth closed no matter what. Regardless of what impression that gives the police, that is a right that everyone in this country has. They cannot compel you to speak until you are standing in front of a judge, having already been sworn in before the court, and even then, there are restrictions on what exactly they can compel you to say.

Walking into a police station and saying "I want a complaint form" only has one legal response: Producing said fucking form. The end. Everything else is nothing more than police trying to cover their ass and the asses of others in their department. They are not in charge of an investigation against a police officer. They're the fucking desk clerk, for fuck's sake. It's not like they have I.A. supervisors handling the desks now, obviously. Given that assumption, I think it's clear why they want all this information up front. Only a real idiot would think that their motives were not entirely selfish, because there simply is no other reasonable motive.

Wrap your mind around this: What if the officer you wish to file a report on is manning the fucking desk? Can you not see how everything they're doing outside of handing over the form is possibly obstructing the ability of a citizen to file an anonymous complaint?

Despite what you may think, we still have the right to anonymity in this country, even when we're asking for a complaint form. Honestly, I'm not interested in playing their fucking game, and I don't legally have to, so fuck them and their questions. Do you not see how simply "playing along" does just as much to erode your rights as condoning this shit in the first place?

If you subsequently ignore them or act like an ass things will not go well for you.

But, lucky for us, there are no laws against ignoring them or acting like an ass, certainly not before you've given them probable cause, and asking for a fucking form is not probable cause.

These rights will only remain rights if people stand up for them. By "playing along" to save yourself misery you're doing a disservice to yourself and every citizen around you that interacts with that department because it just reinforces the intimidation and bullying tactics these fuckheads use when the law isn't enough to get you to "respect their authoritay!" If everyone told a cop "Go fuck yourself, you have no right to my name" then they wouldn't play these games and you fucking know it.

I may be an asshat, but at least I give a damn about my rights and am willing to put up with a little bullshit in order to preserve my legal rights. You play their game if you want to but I have more self-respect than that.

I know I'm responding to an AC here, but I think this needs to be said. Every cop is culpable for the actions of these bad cops because almost none of them stand up for what's right. What happens to these guys is they're put on paid vacation for a couple weeks until everyone forgets that they did something, no matter how heinous or egregious the violation was. When the rest of the police force stands up and starts throwing the bad cops out to the curb, then I'll stop lumping them in together. Until then, they're all in cahoots as far as I'm concerned and I'll avoid dealing with them by whatever means I have.

Normally I'm not one for collective responsibly, but since in this case their stated profession is the pursuit of justice and upholding the law, so is it fairly egregious that the typical response to official misconduct is the closing of ranks and whitewashing. If anything the standard of behavior should be higher and more strict.

One thing about the letter, they mentioned constitutional issues, but I'm surprised the possibility of destruction of evidence charges didn't come up.

Exactly. This is why the phrase "a few bad apples spoils the bunch" is so apt.

It does not mean that the rare bad cop gives the rest of them a bad name. It means that the rest of them, by derelicting their duty to serve the people and failing to protect them from these bad cops, are themselves bad cops.

Personally, I think if a cop doesn't "step up" that makes him part of the problem. The only good cops, in my ideal view of the world, are the ones who do "step up".

In reality - and it never even has to be said out loud - if a cop narcs on other cops, s/he knows the rest may take their sweet time in providing back-up in a deadly emergency. Taking the moral high road could literally cost you your life, thus...

That said, I have had the pleasure of knowing an honest cop that stood up to even higher ranked officers who were doing things they weren't supposed to be doing, and I made it clear to him how much I respected that he showed the stones that he did. If there were more out there like him, there wouldn't have to be so much animosity towards the police.

Seriously, you take the actions of a small percentile of cops to represent the masses?

It's the actions of a small percentile of cops that ARE the problem. So what's your point? If you happen to be misfortunate enough to have a run-in with one of them, that's all that will matter. Not how many others or what the percentages are-- just that one cop. He'll be a 100% dick and will be busy fucking up your day. But you can console yourself as you're getting ass-raped by the four biker dudes with skull tattoos that it's really not that big a problem for everybody else.

It isn't a small percentile when it is systematic procedure in some departments, a procedure seemingly unchallenged by those in it. No, it is a representation of the masses of police. If they disagree, they should stand up. Their silence is agreement.

I'll ask you this question, as I've never been able to get a satisfactory answer from anyone else who claims bad cops are a 'small percentile':

If bad cops are a tiny percentage (let's say 1% for the purpose of this argument) of all cops, then why don't the 'good' cops, who vastly outnumber the 'bad' cops simply have a little chat with the 'bad' cops?

"Hey, Joe? I and my 98 pals have noticed you are breaking the law and departmental policies. And we don't like it. You're giving all of us a bad name. Straighte

No idea how it is relevant to the current discussion, but gun owners who carry openly are sometime bothered by police under the guise of a visible firearm 'causing a disturbance' or making an officer 'feel uncomfortable'. Police turn exercising that freedom into an enormous hassle to discourage people from exercising it.

Hearing about such destruction of recordings makes me think of the doctrine of spoliation [wikipedia.org]. The underlying principle is that when a party intentionally destroys evidence, there's reason to infer the evidence would hurt them, not help them. Seems doubly important when the police are involved.

What do you do when the answer is "YOU'RE RESISTING ARREST!!!" and they beat the shit out of you, taze you, then 'lose your phone down the sewer in the struggle'?

And don't count on any dashcam footage to help you. Here's an example where nine independent dashcams mysteriously "failed" [harvard.edu] to record an incident where a reporter, who was coincidentally (of course it's just a coincidence, am I right?) covering a series of corruption scandals within the local government, was pulled out of her car by a dozen officers, along with her cameraman, and roughed up on the side of the road.

Here's a nice passage:

Although I was the first journalist in the United States known to be subjected to a felony traffic stop while on the job, some officers said I was "lucky it wasn't a real one." Had it been, they claimed, I would have been "eating the pavement." One police official told Washingtonian magazine, "McCarren should quit her whining. She wasn't shot."

In my state the use of dashcam videos has been discontinued because it almost never helped the prosecution. 99% of the time it was solely benefiting the defense. Since it didn't help with convictions they just got rid of it. I guess their logic was why pay extra for something that only helps the other side. And it's not like the DA really wants to have to deal with corrupt, violent cops and false charges and all that other crap which he couldn't really pursue even if he wanted to because he relies on a close relationship with the police to get convictions. Or at least that's the logic I think. I think he would still get cooperation from the police because they want the convictions at least as much as the prosecutor himself does. The cops might start harassing him though.

incorrect, in most states, when you are arrested, you automatically lose the privacy rights. Hell, in many states, they will print your photo with the date you were arrested and the crime as well as location in the paper, online and elsewhere. See: Chattanooga News Free Press.

(The rare reason: It violates the privacy of a citizen who is involved.)

Yup. This was always the excuse they'd bring up when we in New Hampshire [freestateproject.org] were fighting this issue legislatively [nhliberty.org]. Domestic violence cases, child victims, whatever emotional bullshit they could throw up to keep the wiretapping law here [state.nh.us] usable as a weapon to prevent people from recording police abuse---which [google.com] is [google.com] how they always [google.com] use it here.

Fortunately there was recently a very positive U.S. District Court ruling, Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011) [google.com], which overrules all of this and makes legislative attempts to fix the problem a moot point.

POLICE OFFICERS are public servants. Into that, read: as long as they wear the UNIFORM they represent (or are supposed to) the LAW, and are responsible for making sure it is upheld in a VISIBLE MANNER. When they fuck up, they should expect to be called on it. Publicly.

With that uniform and the visibility comes the realisation that one HAS NO PRIVACY. If one cannot accept that, then one has NO BUSINESS WEARING THE UNIFORM.

Like "oops" I accidentally broke half the bones in your body and smashed in your face and then tried to murder you. It was an accident though. Do you really expect them to take full responsibility for the stuff they do that is actually illegal? That's a level of honesty that even most non-police don't have. Police are professional liars. Lying is practically in their job description. Of course they are supposed to only lie to suspects, not in court under oath. I think most police have an attitude of "everyo

Earlier Wikileaks and Assange wanted to be here, we had The Pirate Bay of course and as I understood it the old / regular photography rules over here is more or less that you'd free to shoot anything except "skyddsobjekt" ("protected object") with photography ban (some military and electricity property for instance.) Stores for instance can't really "ban" you (AFAIK/U - IANAL) from taking a photo but they can of course ask you to leave for whatever reason so if they have a

At the very least it provides a good basis for a lawsuit if someone has their recordings destroyed. The 14th amendment connection of not allowing the destruction of personal property without due process helps. I think this is an important and very beneficial ruling.

"That wouldn't be a federal crime. "
Incorrect, it would in fact be a violation of both the 1st and 14th. The FBI is tasked with investigating civil rights violations by police departments, which this is.
Glad I could educate you.

Nobody goes to jail for these kinds of civil rights violation. You need to learn the difference between criminal and civil law. Like I did. I spent $130k and 3 years of my life learning it after I got tired of opining on legal matters on Slashdot without knowing what I was talking about. (That's not sarcasm; that actually true.)

I'm a police brutality victim. If my assailant hadn't been a cop I think it might even have been considered attempted murder. I had no idea that I could file a report [fbi.gov] with the FBI. I think I will eventually do that although I have no proof and no witnesses. Well, there were plenty of witnesses, but they were all cops.

It was before the recent case that confirmed that filming the police is legal. So I was afraid to record them because I felt certain that I would be arrested and charged under my state's wiretapping law. And I figured they would probably just "lose" my phone anyway. They'd say "What phone?". Now I'm afraid to leave my house without some kind of recording device. I will record the police at any encounter with them now.

I think there's actually a good chance that the cop in question would come after me for reporting him. After all, he tried to kill me for a much lesser offense right in front of a bunch of people. So I may wait until I can get a gun license and buy a gun to protect myself and then make a report.

This process has taught me that the police really are invulnerable and completely above the law unless you have at least an audio recording of the event or some unbiased civilian witnesses. Judges will always believe the word of a cop over a civilian. Juries also tend to believe the cop's story from what I've heard. People don't want to believe that there is a violent, abusive, and possibly homicidal and insane cop on the loose. So they don't believe it. At least not without clear video evidence.

If I ever have another run in with the police, I might just make a run for it. I almost died the last time when I fully cooperated. At the time I was completely certain that I was about to die. The fact that I was pinned there unable to do anything to save myself was one of the worst parts about the fact that I was about to die.

If there hadn't been so many police witnesses I am pretty sure I would be dead now. I was caught unprepared and never even tried to run away. I thought he was just going to arrest me on false charges, but instead he severely beat me and then apparently tried to kill me. I think one of the other cops there (there was a whole crowd of them nearby) pulled the enraged cop off of me.

Although I dislike cops even more after what happened to me I wish I knew who it was that saved my life. I figure he at least deserves a thank you. I can no longer honestly say that a cop has never helped me or saved me from anything. But it's hard to feel grateful to the police in general when I was saved from another cop intent on murdering me and then charged by the DA as though I were the one who attacked the cop. Although the cop was willing to save my life, he was not willing to come forward to save me from going to jail for many years for something I didn't do. I didn't end up having to go to jail because I took a plea bargain, but I did have to agree to the absurd story while under oath and lie to a judge, making it basically impossible to sue. From what I've heard that's the point of the whole exercise. The price of my freedom was a false confession. According to the public record I am now the one who attacked him. Just out of the blue for no reason whatsoever apparently. My side of the story was never even heard by anyone except my lawyer. That's American justice.

I think the only reason people mostly cooperate with the police is that they don't believe they are about to be murdered by them. That the worst they will do to you is maybe rough you up a bit and file false charges. I guess it's logical that a cop would be willing to commit murder for not sufficiently respecting their authority. They know that they can get away with it. So why not? To a sufficiently sadistic person murder is great fun.

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than

...is that you can take pictures, and it won't matter if the cops take or even if they destroy your device. As technology improves, and the service gets faster, it expect it may even become possible to upload video in real time.

Surely the police know about such things now. So they may just assume you are uploading the data somewhere. So what are they going to do? They'll just grab your phone and turn it off before they beat you half to death.After they beat you, assuming you are still alive, they will do their best to put you in prison for a long time by charging you with any cover charges they can think of. I doubt there are many cases of police brutality where the victim was not charged with something. Most victims will have ho

That is great and fully possible except for one huge flaw, the device has to be logged into that cloud provider, which makes it still equally easy to delete it from the cloud on that device. Many police stations give their officers lessons on how to delete photos/video from a phone, if that became a more common practice, they would add lessons on how to delete from cloud apps.

The police harassment of photographers won't really end until either:1) A settlement over this costs a city a Whole Lot of Money (>$100,000.00 + all lawyer fees).-or-2) A police officer goes to jail for at least a year over this.Until then, threatening letters, especially from this Justice Department, are little more than toilet paper.

Why would a city care? Any judgment against them is paid by... the taxpayers! No, the way to solve this is to remove official immunity for the cases in which police officers violate citizens' civil rights.

Have you ever been involved in government at the city level? They most certainly do care--even about very little citizen participation and news coverage.

You get someone to stir up shit about something like that at a City Council meeting and have several news outlets there and a packed room and I guarantee you that the City Council will not make the typical stupid moves it normally does.

The police harassment of photographers won't really end until either:1) A settlement over this costs a city a Whole Lot of Money (>$100,000.00 + all lawyer fees).

How's $170,000 sound?:)

See Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011) [google.com]. Glik got a $170,000 settlement out of the Boston police. In New Hampshire, there are several people [google.com] who were similarly abused by police and now have similar lawsuits underway. The First Circuit covers New Hampshire, so I think you can guess how these cases will go.

I am not saying that the police shouldn't be recorded, they should, but I can understand why even if they aren't doing anything wrong they don't like it. First off it just kinda sucks to get recorded when you are doing work. I think if I came in to your cube/office and setup cameras to record you all day long, you might get a little mad at me and the "if you are doing nothing wrong" argument won't help mollify you.

Then there's the fact that given enough recording time, you are going to do something that mak

The part about editing. That's what the cops always say. They say, "Yes he did shoot that 12 year old girl in the head with a taser for running away from him, but you didn't see what happened just before that." They'll claim her real crime was edited out. I doubt that sort of thing happens very often. What is the motive supposed to be anyway for doing that? Maybe if the cop and the injured suspect had some kind of prior history, but usually that's not the case. People need to realize that for every police c

It's great how when something good actually happens in the US the comments on Slashdot are still mostly negative.

The existence of these letters and their public nature will make it basically impossible for any police department in the country to win a case in which they are accused of illegally destroying a recording. The legal arguments are handed to us here, by the DoJ no less. This creates a huge financial incentive for states and cities to make sure that their officers are not destroying recordings, and as they say, money talks. This seems like a good move which saves the administration from having to arrest police officers while accomplishing basically the same goal.

A little idealistic, when you consider the symbiotic relationship between prosecutors and cops. Like an AC posted above, it will just make sure that the recording devices are "confiscated" rather than destroyed on-site. Then, short of something like Qik automatically streaming the recording elsewhere, it's the recorders' word against the cops'.

Historically, it's not difficult to guess which side will get preference.

It formalizes privilege. It says that it's a violation of the constitution they admit is happening, and that they will not arrest them over it, but will instead brief in favor of the defendant. In effect, it/weakens/ a position of strength, but doesn't punish the abuse. It admits they know it's happening and have done nothing about it. It's like fining microsoft a thousand a day on antitrust violations... the punishment may be real, but it's wholly trivial and effectively legitimizes the violations, the same as wehrgeld used to permit rape and murder by the wealthy aristocracy.

And even if it was a good thing, it's still just one small step forward after a hundred big steps back. I'm not cheering for that.

The DoJ handed out legal arguments. What they have not done is:
- prosecuted the officers
- revoked their pensions or suggested they be turned over to the victims via civil forfeiture. Which, if you're aware... is the penalty for a lot of relatively minor civilian crimes. Shoot a deer in the wrong spot, have some weed in your house... you can lose your car or home.
- stripped them of the protection of their department and union -- as they are allowed to do by law in most civil rights violations.
- revoked their qualified immunity when acting in egregious violation of law
- revoked departmental immunity
- taken out entire departments, internal affairs, and the citizen's review board on charges of corruption, conspiracy, battery, kidnapping (that is what unlawful arrest is usually), sexual assault (most frisks) and then thrown them all in for the rest of their natural life under rico. They are of course, free to roll on their comrades in exchange for a 5-10 year reduced sentence with 20 years of probation. The same as any other violent felon would be in a first time offense.

Because let's face it. Citizens get the book thrown at them. Police should too. They at least have the benefit of a bit of training in the law.

You want progress -- do the above publicly to TWO police department's, one sheriff, and one executive law enforcement agency somewhere in the US.

Until then -- it is a mere piece of advice that it is a violation of the constitution which comes with no repercussion save paid leave and the possibility of a civil suit. Not good enough.

"Please stop violating the citizens' civil rights" isn't exactly something to be applauded. A move in the right direction, but not a fundamental shift. There is still a deep problem which needs resolved, something this doesn't do.

My friend got a fix it tixket for his LEGAL flowmaster xhaust on his mustang. When the CHP officer approached him about the loud exhaust, my friend, a wise legally minded citizen, pulled out the spec sheet for the exhaust showing it was below 95db at some range (thelimit) and also a safety bulletin from the head of CHP in california stating that no CHP officer is trained or qualified to make exhaust sound level distinctions.

He was nearly arrested and still got the ticket. He won in court because the offic

it's sad that the officer threatened arrest, but I can't say I blame him for harrassing your friend. Why? Because there's no legitimate reason for ridiculously loud exhausts outside of a race track or similar environment, unless your exhaust happens to be damaged and you're en-route to get it fixed or some other equally-improbably corner case. The rest of us just don't want to hear the noise. Get off my lawn, etc.

Why? Because there is no gray area here. Nobody has a right NOT to be recorded in public.

The US Justice Department HAD to act because local DAs gave them no choice. Every DA that thought arrests and confiscating/destroying video was an acceptable response to the public recording of LEOs should be disbarred. They are either to incompetent or corrupt to hold office.

Individual police officers (and other government agents) who violate a person's civil rights may be sued under federal law and/or state law. The main federal civil rights law is 42 U.S.C. 1983, which authorizes suits against state and local officials who violate a person's constitutional rights. Federal officials may be sued under an analogous judge-made law called the "Bivens doctrine". In addition, state and local officials, but not federal officials, may be sued under state law.

When a police officer loses his house, his car and a lot of his future income maybe he will pay attention to the law next time. Maybe his fellow officers will learn something, too.

The truly pathetic part is the state could easily prevent a lot of police beatings and misconduct by simply forcing them to get video recordings for any of the typical cover [tumblr.com] and contempt of cop [wikipedia.org] charges. Resisting arrest? Disorderly conduct? Disturbing the peace? Failure to obey a lawful order? Assault and battery against a police officer? With a deadly weapon? In my case they even included little things like "failure to identify oneself". All of the attorneys know that a lot of the time these charges are bogus and in fact likely mean that the alleged aggressor is in fact the victim. So why treat the situation the same as any other charge? When it comes to these sorts of charges the police should need real evidence and only unbiased civilian witness testimony should be admissible.

You obviously can't trust other police officers to come forward and rat out their fellow officer for beating up or in some cases even killing someone for some minor insult or sign of disrespect. In fact you can pretty much count on every last one of them to lie about it even under oath. I mean, you are talking about accusing a fellow officer of excessive use of force, false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, violating the victim's civil rights and tort assault and battery. It's just not going to happen. To pretend that it is is completely ridiculous. There is simply no police misconduct case where the police officers themselves can be counted on to testify truthfully. In such situations it is quite reasonable to assume that they are going to lie to protect themselves and lie to protect each other under the assumption that if they ever ended up losing control and injuring or killing someone out of anger that their fellow officers would back up their story as well.

I was attacked by a pissed off psycho cop at a DUI roadblock They had to drop the DUI charges against me when they finally allowed me to take a breathalyzer test at the police station and after 3 separate tries the machine refused to output anything other than 0.0% alcohol. They really wanted to get me on that, but I don't even drink. Luckily I don't use alcohol based mouthwash either or I might have been fighting a DUI charge as well and probably wouldn't have gotten such a favorable plea bargain. DUI roadblocks shouldn't even exist in this country and some states don't allow them, but if we have to have them all the encounters should be filmed. Police simply cannot be trusted to not abuse their power in such situations. If they can't videotape the stops and sobriety tests they should at least have an unbiased witness not associated with law enforcement there to observe and make sure things don't get out of hand or serve as a witness if they do. Former victims of police brutality would make good witnesses although most of us would probably be too scared. Once you realize that cops can and will severely injure or kill you for even the most minor sign of disrespect, it's difficult to have voluntary contact with any of them for any reason ever again. I can only admire the courage of those NH guys intentionally filming the police. No doubt if one of them is killed or very badly injured people will consider that courage to be stupidity. People will say, "What did he expect, provoking a cop like that? I have no sympathy for him."

This is a good step. Now I wonder if the Feds feel the same way when someone is taping THEIR activity? DEA? BATF? TSA? FBI? DHS?

This practice of blocking recordings, seizing and destroying cameras, etc. has been going on at the federal level as well, so I'm not about to fall on my knees and thank the DOJ for lecturing Baltimore.

Note that there ARE complications when videotaping because certain states have laws which prohibit audio recording of a conversation unless all parties give their consent. The cops have used this as an excuse to charge people with a crime for making video recordings of cops.

"In recent times, it seems that many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war with police officers destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it, . . . . . "

Remove the comma after 'times' and put it after 'war'.

It's simply very poor sentence construction so typical of the younger generation. Did none of you pay attention in English class?!?

It's a sentence. Just because we have insisted on simplifying everything down to where those who can barely read at a 2nd grade level can "understand" it, that doesn't mean that complex sentences that express a sophisticated set of connected ideas are invalid.

Yeah, but it's an awkward sentence. I can make a very minor modification and make it flow much better:

In recent times, it seems that many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war, with police officers destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it. In a surprising twist, the US Justice Department has sent a letter to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department, who have been quite heavy handed in enforcing their 'Don't record me bro!' mantra.

When the parent says the sentence is missing an article, he is correct. It should read "the US Justice Department has sent a letter." The word before the quotation, "the," is also an article but it modifies "US Justice Department" not "letter," which itself needs an article.

Additionally, missed by all of you, "Police Departments" should not be capitalized as it is not a proper noun. You would capitalize "Boston Police Department," because it is a specific named department but "Police Departments" should instead read as "police departments," as it not referring to any named department specifically.

Yet, the thrust of your argument is correct in my opinion. The general sentence structure of the original statement is sound and the sentence does not represent a run-on. Some ill-informed teachers may wrongly mark such sentences as run-ons, but if that is the case they themselves are incorrect in doing so.

Still, sometimes teachers request a sentence be simplified so the reading of it is smoother, rather than any actual infractions against the laws of grammar having been committed — and that case may very well apply to the sentence in question. For example, the above sentence would read better if "(PDF)" was omitted or if the same information was stated in a less jarring form, such as "the US Justice Department has sent a letter in the form of a PDF" or ""the US Justice Department has sent a PDF letter," rather then placing "PDF" inside a parenthetic expression.

Thus, we could say that the sentence could be improved in some ways, but is not technically a run-on, even though other grammatical errors are present.

Or you could just move [freestateproject.org] out of the hellhole that is Maryland and somewhere freer.:)

There are a large number of activists fighting the right-to-record battle in New Hampshire, and we're winning quite handily. There were a number of people in the Town of Weare who were arrested and charged with felonies for recording a traffic stop. After the criminal cases were dismissed or dropped, the U.S. District Court, First Circuit (which covers New Hampshire) coincidentally released a highly positive ruling, Glik v. C